Opening arguments to begin on Wednesday

The jury that will decide whether to convict Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev includes a house painter eager to "serve my country," a man in his 20s who is Baha'i and speaks Farsi, and a water department employee who said he thinks the death penalty would be "the easy way out."

The jury is made up of eight men and 10 women, many of whom said they believed Tsarnaev was involved in the 2013 bombings that killed three people and left at least 264 injured.

The 18-member jury -- 12 primary jurors and six alternates -- will determine whether Tsarnaev is guilty of participating in the bombing, and they could be asked to impose the death penalty if they decide he is.

Tsarnaev is charged with one count of using and conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction resulting in death and one count of malicious destruction of property by means of an explosive device resulting in death.

Prosecutors accuse Tsarnaev of working with his brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, to set off two bombs made from pressure cookers near the marathon's crowded finish line.

The bombs, packed with BB-like pellets and nails, exploded 12 seconds apart, spraying the crowd with shrapnel. The victims included an 8-year-old boy, a 29-year-old woman and a graduate student from China.

Three days later, authorities say, the brothers killed a Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer, then led police on a wild chase in which they threw explosives out the car windows and exchanged gunfire with police.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev died in the mayhem that night. He had been shot, suffered injuries from an explosion and had been run over by his fleeing brother, according to authorities.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was found the next day, hiding in a boat in the backyard of a home in Watertown, Massachusetts.

Although Massachusetts hasn't had a death penalty on its books in three decades, and the state hasn't executed anyone since 1947, the death penalty is an option because the case is being tried in federal court -- where the death penalty remains an option for some crimes, including terror-related offenses.

Some of the jurors initially said they were personally opposed to the death penalty, but under questioning said they could consider it. Others favored the death penalty more strongly.

One juror, a restaurant manager, said she would have no problem choosing the death penalty if the evidence was there. "I don't feel like I'm sending someone to death or life in prison," she said. "Their actions got them there. I'm following the law."

Another woman, an executive assistant at a law firm, said initially that she wasn't sure she could vote for the death penalty. But under questioning, she reconsidered, saying, "If I came to that decision based on the evidence I heard, then yes."

John Boehner is facing his toughest week yet as speaker of the House of Representatives -- and that's saying a lot after a tumultuous four years of repeated efforts by his own Republican colleagues to derail his legislative agenda.

The battle to fully fund the Department of Homeland Security will not be resolved Thursday night -- and could come down to a series of last-minute votes Friday, the day the department is scheduled to run out of money.

After five attempts, the Senate finally cleared a key procedural hurdle on Wednesday to move forward on a measure that would fund the Department of Homeland Security, which is scheduled to run out of money on Friday.

The House cleared legislation Tuesday that will keep the agency operating through the end of September after a standoff last week threatened to shutter the agency and furlough thousands of workers. The 257-167 vote sends the bill to President Barack Obama for his signature.

Republican House Speaker John Boehner, who rarely casts votes, backed the bill, along with his top lieutenants. A majority of House Republicans opposed the bill. Just 75 GOP lawmakers joined with 182 Democrats to push it across the finish line.

The legislation does nothing to rein in Obama's immigration executive orders -- a top priority of conservatives. That issue was a sticking point for weeks as Republicans tried to tie DHS funding to the repeal of the orders but the party couldn't overcome Democratic filibusters in the Senate.

The debate sparked plenty of drama on Capitol Hill over the past week. The House stayed in session late into the night on Friday after conservatives helped block a bill that would have kept DHS open for 3 weeks. Amid rumors of a potential coup, Speaker John Boehner pushed through a bill that kept the agency open until March 6 -- just enough time to work out today's deal.

Boehner told his members Tuesday morning that he had run out of options and the Senate couldn't pass a bill with immigration language attached.

He asked if anyone had any questions and not one member stood up or complained.

The National Weather Service has issued a winter weather advisory for much of Maryland that remains in effect until Tuesday evening. More details county by county

A brief period of snow started midday Tuesday and will be followed by sleet and freezing rain that continues into the evening. At 1 p.m., radar showed snow in Baltimore, but it was actually freezing rain. With the temperature at 31 degrees, icy spots are possible.

A wintry mix to include sleet and freezing rain is expected into the evening. Temperatures will then go up overnight into Wednesday, and the precipitation will change to all rain. Temperatures could reach the upper 40s Wednesday.

But late Wednesday night, cold air will move in again, and the rain will transition to snow. There's a potential for snow accumulation by Thursday morning.

Thursday's high temperature will not likely reach above freezing.

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BODY MASS INDEX AND BLOOD PRESSURE. WE ARE ALREADY GETTING INTO THE THICK OF OUR NEXT ROUND OF WINTER WEATHER. SNOW IS STARTING TO MOVE IN. WE SEE THE COMPLEXITY OF THE STORM ALSO UNFOLDING. HALF OF WASHINGTON HAS SNOW AND THE OTHER HAS. SLEET -- HAS SLEET. IT BEGINS TO LINEUP A BIT AS WE GET TO HOWARD COUNTY. FURTHER UP NORTH , AROUND HARTFORD IN CECIL COUNTY, SOME SPOTS REDUCING TO MODERATE SNOW. ALL GETTING LIKE SNOW AT THIS POINT. TO THE SOUTH OF US, NOTHING FOR ANNAPOLIS ROAD NOW, JUST CLOUDS ALONG THE EASTERN SHORE. WE ARE UNDER THE WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY UNTIL LATER THIS EVENING AND LATER TONIGHT. HERE IS WHAT WE CAN EXPECT. LOOKS LIKE WE CAN SEE THE WINTRY MIX TODAY. SNOW IS POSSIBLE THURSDAY. SUNNY AND COLD BY FRIDAY. 30 DEGREES NOW DOWNTOWN. 32 IN PIKESVILLE. HIGHS TODAY BETWEEN 30 AND 37 DEGREES. CLOUDY, OF COURSE. A WINTRY MIX. THAT WILL LATER CHANGED TO RAIN LATER TONIGHT. BETWEEN NOW AND AT :00 P.M., THE WINTRY MIX AND THEN SLEET, RAIN, AND FREEZING SNOW -- BETWEEN NOW AND 9:00 P.M., THE WINTRY MIX AND THEN SLEET, RAIN, AND FREEZING SNOW. LATER TONIGHT, 8:00, STARTING TO GET SOME RAIN IN BALTIMORE. TEMPERATURES WARM A BIT. WE COULD SEE POTENTIAL FREEZING RAIN IN NORTHERN BALTIMORE COUNTY AND CECIL COUNTY. EVEN NORTH OF HOWARD COUNTY. 11:00 TONIGHT, TEMPERATURES WARM ENOUGH TO SUPPORT RAIN. IF THERE IS ANYTHING OUT THERE, SUCH AS THE SURFACE OF YOUR CAR STILL 32 DEGREES, YOU COULD STILL GET SEMI'S ON ANY SURFACE THAT IS STILL AT AND BELOW FREEZING. WE ARE LOOKING AT MOSTLY RAIN TOMORROW MORNING. LATE WEDNESDAY NIGHT, WE WILL GET A BURST OF COLDER AIR. WHATEVER STARTED AS RAIN WILL TURN OVER TO SNOW WEDNESDAY NIGHT THROUGH THURSDAY MORNING. WE CAN SEE THAT PANNING OUT THURSDAY DURING THE DAY. NOT ANTICIPATING A LOT OF SNOW TODAY. BUT LATER IN THE WE, BY THURSDAY, WE COULD SEE A COUPLE OF INCHES AROUND HERE. I THINK TWO TO FOUR INCHES COULD BE POSSIBLE.

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Investigation was ordered by AG Eric Holder

A Justice Department civil rights investigation has concluded that the Ferguson Police Department and the city's municipal court engaged in a "pattern and practice" of discrimination against African Americans, targeting them disproportionately for traffic stops, use of force, and jail sentences, according to a U.S. law enforcement official briefed on the investigation.

The probe is the result of an investigation ordered by Attorney General Eric Holder after the police shooting that killed Michael Brown last summer.

Among the findings, reviewed by CNN: from 2012 to 2014, 85% of people subject to vehicle stops by Ferguson police were African American; 90% of those who received citations were black; and 93% of people arrested were black. This while 67% of the Ferguson population is black.

In 88% of the cases in which the Ferguson police reported using force, it was against African Americans. During the period 2012-2014 black drivers were twice as likely as white drivers to be searched during traffic stops, but 26% less likely to be found in possession of contraband.

Blacks were disproportionately more likely to be cited for minor infractions: 95% of tickets for "manner of walking in roadway," essentially jaywalking, were against African Americans. Also, 94% of all "failure to comply" charges were filed against black people.

The findings in the investigation are expected to be made public as soon as Wednesday, and the Justice Department is expected to pursue a court-supervised consent decree that requires the city of Ferguson to make changes to its police and courts.

According to the findings, reviewed by CNN, African Americans were 68% less likely to have their cases dismissed by a Ferguson municipal judge, and were overwhelmingly more likely to be arrested during traffic stops solely for an outstanding warrant by the Ferguson courts.

The investigators found evidence of racist jokes being sent around by Ferguson police and court officials. One November 2008 email read in part that President Barack Obama wouldn't likely be President for long because "what black man holds a steady job for four years."

Another jokes that made the rounds on Ferguson government email in May 2011 said: "An African American woman in New Orleans was admitted into the hospital for a pregnancy termination. Two weeks later she received a check for $3000. She phoned the hospital to ask who it was from. The hospital said: 'Crimestoppers.'"